The earliest written recordreferring to Palestine as a geographical region is in theHistories ofHerodotus in the 5th century BCE, which calls the areaPalaistine,[7] referring to the territory previously held byPhilistia, a state that existed in that area from the 12th to the 7th century BCE. TheRoman Empire conquered the region in 63 BCE and appointed client kings to rule over it until Rome began directly ruling over the region and established a predominately-Jewish province named "Judaea" in 6 CE.[8] The Roman Empire killed the vast majority of Jews in Judaea to suppress theBar Kokhba revolt during 132-136 CE; shortly after the revolt, the Romans expelled and enslaved nearly all of the remaining Jews in the historicalJudah region centered on Jerusalem, depopulating that area.[9][10][11][12] Roman authorities renamed the province of Judaea to "Syria Palaestina" in c. 135 CE to punish Jews for the Bar Kokhba Revolt and permanently sever ties between Jews and the province.[13][14][15] In 390, during theByzantine period, the region was split into the provinces ofPalaestina Prima,Palaestina Secunda, and Palaestina Tertia. Following theMuslim conquest of the Levant in the 630s, the military district ofJund Filastin was established. While Palestine's boundaries have changed throughout history, it has generally comprised the southern portion of the widerSyria orLevant region.
Many classical-era sources referred to the inland region inhabited byJews asJudea, distinguishing it from the Philistine coastal area. TheRoman Empire conquered the region and in 6 CE established a predominately-Jewish province named "Judaea."[8] The Roman Empire killed the vast majority of Jews in Judaea to suppress theBar Kokhba Revolt during 132-136 CE; shortly after the revolt, the Romans expelled and enslaved nearly all of the remaining Jews in Judaea, depopulating the region.[9][10][11][12] Roman authorities renamed the province of Judaea to "Syria Palaestina" in c. 135 CE to punish Jews for the Bar Kokhba Revolt and permanently sever ties between Jews and the province.[13][14][15] This was the only case where the Roman Empire renamed a province specifically in response to a rebellion.[27][28] There iscircumstantial evidence linkingHadrian with the name change,[8] but the precise date is not certain.[8]
The term is generally accepted to be a cognate of the biblical namePeleshet (פלשתPəlésheth, usually transliterated asPhilistia). The term and its derivates are used more than 250 times inMasoretic-derived versions of theHebrew Bible, of which 10 uses are in theTorah, with undefined boundaries, and almost 200 of the remaining references are in theBook of Judges and theBooks of Samuel.[21][22][25][29] The term is rarely used in theSeptuagint, which used a transliterationLand of Phylistieim (Γῆ τῶν Φυλιστιείμ), different from the contemporary Greek place namePalaistínē (Παλαιστίνη).[30] It is also theorized to be theportmanteau of the Greek word for the Philistines andpalaistês, which means "wrestler/rival/adversary".[31] This aligns with the Greek practice of punning place names, since the latter is part of theetymological meaning forIsrael.[32][33][34]
The Septuagint instead used the term "allophuloi" (άλλόφυλοι, "other nations") throughout the Books of Judges and Samuel,[35][36] such that the term "Philistines" has been interpreted to mean "non-Israelites of the Promised Land" when used in the context of Samson, Saul and David,[37] and Rabbinic sources explain that these peoples were different from the Philistines of theBook of Genesis.[viii]
Kingdoms of the Southern Levant during the Iron Age (c. 830 BCE)
The region was among the earliest in the world to see human habitation, agricultural communities andcivilization.[49] In the late 4th millennium BCE, during theEarly Bronze Age, there were areas of permanent Egyptian settlement in the southern Levant; land beyond these areas was inhabited by the Egyptians seasonally. The area of permanent settlement includedTell es-Sakan on the Mediterranean coast, which is the oldest known fortified Egyptian settlement and was likely the administrative centre of the region.[50] During theBronze Age, independentCanaanite city-states were established, and were influenced by the surrounding civilizations of ancient Egypt,Mesopotamia,Phoenicia,Minoan Crete, and Syria. Between 1550 and 1400BCE, the Canaanite cities became vassals to the EgyptianNew Kingdom who held power until the 1178BCEBattle of Djahy (Canaan) during the widerBronze Age collapse.[51]
TheIsraelites emerged from a dramatic social transformation that took place in the people of the central hill country of Canaan around 1200BCE, with no signs of violent invasion or even of peaceful infiltration of a clearly defined ethnic group from elsewhere.[52][xiii] During theIron Age, the Israelites established two related kingdoms,Israel and Judah. TheKingdom of Israel emerged as an important local power by the 10th century BCE before falling to theNeo-Assyrian Empire in 722BCE. Israel's southern neighbor, theKingdom of Judah, emerged in the 8th or 9th century BCE and later became a client state of first the Neo-Assyrian and then theNeo-Babylonian Empire before a revolt against the latter led to its destruction in 586BCE. The region became part of the Neo-Assyrian Empire fromc. 740 BCE,[53] which was itself replaced by the Neo-Babylonian Empire inc. 627 BCE.[54]
In 539BCE, theBabylonian empire was conquered by theAchaemenid Empire. According to theHebrew Bible and implications from theCyrus Cylinder, the exiled Jews were eventually allowed toreturn to Jerusalem.[57] The returned population in Judah were allowed to self-rule under Persian governance, and some parts of the fallen kingdom became a Persian province known asYehud.[58][59] Except Yehud, at least another four Persian provinces existed in the region: Samaria, Gaza, Ashdod, and Ascalon, in addition to the Phoenician city states in the north and the Arabian tribes in the south.[60] During the same period, theEdomites migrated from Transjordan to the southern parts ofJudea, which became known asIdumaea.[61] TheQedarites were the dominant Arab tribe; their territory ran from theHejaz in the south to the Negev in the north through the period of Persian and Hellenistic dominion.[62][63]
In the 330s BCE, Macedonian rulerAlexander the Great conquered the region, which changed hands several times during thewars of the Diadochi and laterSyrian Wars. It ultimately fell to theSeleucid Empire between 219 and 200BCE. During that period, the region became heavilyhellenized, building tensions between Greeks and locals.
In 167BCE, theMaccabean Revolt erupted, leading to the establishment of an independentHasmonean Kingdom in Judea. From 110BCE, the Hasmoneans extended their authority over much of Palestine, includingSamaria,Galilee,Iturea,Perea, and Idumea.[65] The Jewish control over the wider region resulted in it also becoming known asJudaea, a term that had previously only referred to the smaller region of theJudaean Mountains.[xv][66] During the same period, the Edomites fully assimilated.[61]
Between 73 and 63BCE, theRoman Republic extended its influence into the region in theThird Mithridatic War. Pompey conquered Judea in 63BCE, splitting the former Hasmonean Kingdom into five districts. In around 40BCE, theParthians conquered Palestine, deposed the Roman allyHyrcanus II, and installed a puppet ruler of the Hasmonean line known asAntigonus II.[67][68] By 37BCE, the Parthians withdrew from Palestine.[67]
In the first and second centuries CE, the province of Judea became the site of two large-scaleJewish revolts against Rome. During theFirst Jewish-Roman War, which lasted from 66 to 73CE, the Romansrazed Jerusalem and destroyed theSecond Temple.[9] InMasada, Jewish zealots reportedly preferred to commit suicide than endure Roman captivity. In 132CE, another Jewish rebellion erupted. TheBar Kokhba revolt took three years to put down, incurred massive costs on both the Romans and the Jews, and desolated much of Judea.[73][74] The center of Jewish life in Palestine moved to the Galilee.[75] After the revolt, the Romans enacted a few punitive measures, including restrictions on Jewish religion and practice,[76] and forbade Jews from inhabiting the area surrounding Jerusalem.[77] The city was rebuilt as aRoman colony calledAelia Capitolina. Around this time, the Roman authorities renamed the province of Judaea asSyria Palaestina. Some scholars contend that this was intended to sever the symbolic and historical connection between the Jewish people and the land.[78][76][8][79] Other interpretations have also been proposed.[77][80]
Between 259 and 272, the region fell under the rule ofOdaenathus as King of thePalmyrene Empire. Following the victory of Christian emperorConstantine in theCivil wars of the Tetrarchy, the Christianization of the Roman Empire began, and in 326, Constantine's motherSaint Helena visitedJerusalem and began the construction of churches and shrines. Palestine became a center of Christianity, attracting numerous monks and religious scholars. TheSamaritan Revolts during this period caused their near extinction. In 614CE, Palestine was annexed by another Persian dynasty; theSassanids, until returning to Byzantine control in 628CE.[81]
The majority of the population was Christian and was to remain so until the conquest of Saladin in 1187. The Muslim conquest apparently had little impact on social and administrative continuities for several decades.[86][xvii][87][xviii] The word 'Arab' at the time referred predominantly to Bedouin nomads, though Arab settlement is attested in the Judean highlands and near Jerusalem by the 5th century, and some tribes had converted to Christianity.[88] The local population engaged in farming, which was considered demeaning, and were calledNabaț, referring toAramaic-speaking villagers. Aḥadīth, brought in the name of a Muslim freedman who settled in Palestine, ordered the Muslim Arabs not to settle in the villages, "for he who abides in villages it is as if he abides in graves".[89]
TheUmayyads, who had spurred a strong economic resurgence in the area,[90] were replaced by theAbbasids in 750.Ramla became the administrative centre for the following centuries, while Tiberias became a thriving centre of Muslim scholarship.[91] From 878, Palestine was ruled from Egypt by semi-autonomous rulers for almost a century, beginning with the Turkish freemanAhmad ibn Tulun, for whom both Jews and Christians prayed when he lay dying[92] and ending with theIkhshidid rulers. Reverence for Jerusalem increased during this period, with many of the Egyptian rulers choosing to be buried there.[xix] However, the later period became characterized by persecution of Christians as the threat from Byzantium grew.[93] TheFatimids, with a predominantlyBerber army, conquered the region in 970, a date that marks the beginning of a period of unceasing warfare between numerous enemies, which destroyed Palestine, and in particular, devastating its Jewish population.[94] Between 1071 and 1073, Palestine was captured by theGreat Seljuq Empire,[95] only to be recaptured by the Fatimids in 1098.[96]
Crusader/Ayyubid period
TheHospitaller fortress inAcre was destroyed in 1291 and partially rebuilt in the 18th century.
The Fatimids again lost the region to theCrusaders in1099. The Crusaders set up[97] theKingdom of Jerusalem (1099–1291).[98] Their control of Jerusalem and most of Palestine lasted almost a century until theirdefeat bySaladin's forces in 1187,[99] after which most of Palestine was controlled by theAyyubids,[99] except for the years 1229–1244 when Jerusalem and other areas were retaken[100] by theSecond Kingdom of Jerusalem, by then ruled fromAcre (1191–1291), but, despite seven further crusades, the Franks were no longer a significant power in the region.[101] TheFourth Crusade, which did not reach Palestine, led directly to the decline of the Byzantine Empire, dramatically reducing Christian influence throughout the region.[102]
In 1486, hostilities broke out between the Mamluks and theOttoman Empire in a battle for control over western Asia, and the Ottomans conquered Palestine in 1516.[105] Between the mid-16th and 17th centuries, a close-knit alliance of three local dynasties, theRidwans ofGaza, theTurabays ofal-Lajjun and theFarrukhs ofNablus, governed Palestine on behalf of thePorte (imperial Ottoman government).[106]
In the 18th century, theZaydani clan under the leadership ofZahir al-Umar ruled large parts of Palestine autonomously[107] until the Ottomans were able to defeat them in theirGalilee strongholds in 1775–76.[108] Zahir had turned the port city ofAcre into a major regional power, partly fueled by his monopolization of thecotton andolive oil trade from Palestine to Europe. Acre's regional dominance was further elevated under Zahir's successorAhmad Pasha al-Jazzar at the expense ofDamascus.[109]
In 1830, on the eve ofMuhammad Ali's invasion,[110] the Porte transferred control of the sanjaks of Jerusalem and Nablus toAbdullah Pasha, the governor of Acre. According to Silverburg, in regional and cultural terms this move was important for creating an Arab Palestine detached from greater Syria (bilad al-Sham).[111] According to Pappe, it was an attempt to reinforce the Syrian front in face of Muhammad Ali's invasion.[112] Two years later, Palestine was conquered by Muhammad Ali's Egypt,[110] but Egyptian rule was challenged in 1834 by acountrywide popular uprising againstconscription and other measures considered intrusive by the population.[113] Its suppression devastated many of Palestine's villages and major towns.[114]
In 1840, Britain intervened and returned control of the Levant to the Ottomans in return for furthercapitulations.[115] The death ofAqil Agha marked the last local challenge to Ottoman centralization in Palestine,[116] and beginning in the 1860s, Palestine underwent an acceleration in its socio-economic development, due to its incorporation into the global, and particularly European, economic pattern of growth. The beneficiaries of this process were Arabic-speaking Muslims and Christians who emerged as a new layer within the Arab elite.[117] In the southern coastal plain, Palestinian villagers developeddistinctive methods of cultivating sandy dunefields (rimāl) known asmawāṣī. These sunken-garden systems supported vineyards, figs, olives, and vegetables, and by theLate Ottoman period had transformed formerly marginal landscapes into productive agricultural zones.[118][119]
Survey of Palestine 1942–1948 1–100,000 Topographical maps. These maps were processed, updated and printed by theSurvey of Israel, while the southern parts of the country were produced solely by theSurvey of Israel. Click on each blue link to see the individual original maps in high resolution.
In 2000, theSecond Intifada (also called al-Aqsa Intifada) began, and Israel built aseparation barrier. In the 2005Israeli disengagement from Gaza, Israel withdrew all settlers and military presence from the Gaza Strip, but maintained military control of numerous aspects of the territory including its borders, air space and coast. Israel's ongoing military occupation of the Gaza Strip, the West Bank and East Jerusalem continues to be the world'slongest military occupation in modern times.[xxii][xxiii]
The boundaries of Palestine have varied throughout history.[xxv][xxvi] TheJordan Rift Valley (comprising Wadi Arabah, theDead Sea andRiver Jordan) has at times formed a political and administrative frontier, even within empires that have controlled both territories.[148] At other times, such as during certain periods during theHasmonean andCrusader states for example, as well as during thebiblical period, territories on both sides of the river formed part of the same administrative unit. During theArabCaliphate period, parts of southernLebanon and the northern highland areas of Palestine and Jordan were administered asJund al-Urdun, while the southern parts of the latter two formed part ofJund Dimashq, which during the 9th century was attached to the administrative unit ofJund Filastin.[149]
The boundaries of the area and the ethnic nature of the people referred to byHerodotus in the 5th century BCE as Palaestina vary according to context. Sometimes, he uses it to refer to the coast north ofMount Carmel. Elsewhere, distinguishing the Syrians in Palestine from the Phoenicians, he refers to their land as extending down all the coast from Phoenicia to Egypt.[150]Pliny, writing inLatin in the 1st century CE, describes a region of Syria that was "formerly calledPalaestina" among the areas of the Eastern Mediterranean.[151]
Since the Byzantine Period, the Byzantine borders ofPalaestina (I andII, also known asPalaestina Prima, "First Palestine", andPalaestina Secunda, "Second Palestine"), have served as a name for the geographic area between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea. Under Arab rule,Filastin (orJund Filastin) was used administratively to refer to what was under the ByzantinesPalaestina Secunda (comprisingJudaea and Samaria), whilePalaestina Prima (comprising theGalilee region) was renamedUrdunn ("Jordan" orJund al-Urdunn).[21]
1916–1922 various proposals:Three proposals for the post World War I administration of Palestine. The red line is the "International Administration" proposed in the 1916Sykes–Picot Agreement, the dashed blue line is the 1919Zionist Organization proposal at theParis Peace Conference, and the thin blue line refers to the final borders of the 1923–48Mandatory Palestine.
1937 British proposal:The first official proposal for partition, published in 1937 by thePeel Commission. An ongoing British Mandate was proposed to keep "the sanctity ofJerusalem andBethlehem", in the form of an enclave from Jerusalem toJaffa, includingLydda andRamle.
The region of Palestine is theeponym for thePalestinian people and theculture of Palestine, both of which are defined as relating to the whole historical region, usually defined as the localities within the border ofMandatory Palestine. The 1968Palestinian National Covenant described Palestine as the "homeland of the Arab Palestinian people", with "the boundaries it had during the British Mandate".[158]
However, since the 1988Palestinian Declaration of Independence, the termState of Palestine refers only to the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. This discrepancy was described by the Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas as a negotiated concession in a September 2011 speech to the United Nations: "... we agreed to establish the State of Palestine on only 22% of the territory of historical Palestine – on all the Palestinian Territory occupied by Israel in 1967."[159]
Estimating the population of Palestine in antiquity relies on two methods – censuses and writings made at the times, and the scientific method based on excavations and statistical methods that consider the number of settlements at the particular age, area of each settlement, density factor for each settlement.
TheBar Kokhba revolt in the 2nd century CE saw a major shift in the population of Palestine. The sheer scale and scope of the overall destruction has been described byDio Cassius in hisRoman History, where he notes that Roman war operations in the country had left some 580,000 Jews dead, with many more dying of hunger and disease, while 50 of their most important outposts and 985 of their most famous villages were razed to the ground. "Thus," writes Dio Cassius, "nearly the whole ofJudaea was made desolate."[161][162]
According toIsraeli archaeologists Magen Broshi and Yigal Shiloh, the population of ancient Palestine did not exceed one million.[xxix][xxx] By 300CE, Christianity had spread so significantly that Jews comprised only a quarter of the population.[xxxi]
Late Ottoman and British Mandate periods
In a study ofOttoman registers of the early Ottoman rule of Palestine,Bernard Lewis reports:
[T]he first half century of Ottoman rule brought a sharp increase in population. The towns grew rapidly, villages became larger and more numerous, and there was an extensive development of agriculture, industry, and trade. The two last were certainly helped to no small extent by the influx of Spanish and other Western Jews.
From the mass of detail in the registers, it is possible to extract something like a general picture of the economic life of the country in that period. Out of a total population of about 300,000 souls, between a fifth and a quarter lived in the six towns ofJerusalem,Gaza,Safed,Nablus,Ramle, andHebron. The remainder consisted mainly of peasants, living in villages of varying size, and engaged in agriculture. Their main food-crops were wheat and barley in that order, supplemented by leguminous pulses, olives, fruit, and vegetables. In and around most of the towns there was a considerable number of vineyards, orchards, and vegetable gardens.[163]
According to Alexander Scholch, the population of Palestine in 1850 was about 350,000 inhabitants, 30% of whom lived in 13 towns; roughly 85% were Muslims, 11% were Christians and 4% Jews.[164]
According to Ottoman statistics studied byJustin McCarthy, the population of Palestine in the early 19th century was 350,000, in 1860 it was 411,000 and in 1900 about 600,000 of whom 94% wereArabs.[165] In 1914 Palestine had a population of 657,000 Muslim Arabs, 81,000 Christian Arabs, and 59,000 Jews.[166] McCarthy estimates the non-Jewish population of Palestine at 452,789 in 1882; 737,389 in 1914; 725,507 in 1922; 880,746 in 1931; and 1,339,763 in 1946.[167]
In 1920, the League of Nations'Interim Report on the Civil Administration of Palestine described the 700,000 people living in Palestine as follows:[168]
Of these, 235,000 live in the larger towns, 465,000 in the smaller towns and villages. Four-fifths of the whole population are Moslems. A small proportion of these are Bedouin Arabs; the remainder, although they speak Arabic and are termed Arabs, are largely of mixed race. Some 77,000 of the population are Christians, in large majority belonging to the Orthodox Church, and speaking Arabic. The minority are members of the Latin or of the Uniate Greek Catholic Church, or—a small number—are Protestants.The Jewish element of the population numbers 76,000. Almost all have entered Palestine during the last 40 years. Prior to 1850, there were in the country only a handful of Jews. In the following 30 years, a few hundreds came to Palestine. Most of them were animated by religious motives; they came to pray and to die in the Holy Land, and to be buried in its soil. After the persecutions in Russia forty years ago, the movement of the Jews to Palestine assumed larger proportions.
According to theIsrael Central Bureau of Statistics, as of 2015[update], the total population of Israel was 8.5million people, of which 75% wereJews, 21%Arabs, and 4% "others".[169] Of the Jewish group, 76% wereSabras (born in Israel); the rest wereolim (immigrants)—16% from Europe, the former Soviet republics, and the Americas, and 8% from Asia and Africa, including theArab countries.[170]
Both Israeli and Palestinian statistics include Arab residents ofEast Jerusalem in their reports.[172][better source needed] According to these estimates the total population in the region of Palestine, as defined as Israel and the Palestinian territories, stands approximately 12.8million.[citation needed]
TheWorld Geographical Scheme for Recording Plant Distributions is widely used in recording the distribution of plants. The scheme uses the code "PAL" to refer to the region of Palestine – a Level 3 area. The WGSRPD's Palestine is further divided into Israel (PAL-IS), including the Palestinian territories, and Jordan (PAL-JO), so is larger than some other definitions of "Palestine".[173]Flora Palaestina used essentially the same geographical area, but included theGolan Heights.[174]
^abאֶרֶץ יִשְׂרָאֵלʾEreṣ Yiśrāʾēl ("Land of Israel"), sometimes called simplyהָאָרֶץhāʾĀreṣ ("the Land") or abbreviatedא״י, is the most commonHebrew name for Palestine as a geographic region (althoughanti-Zionists may avoid using the term in non-religious contexts, due to its perceivedirrendentist connotations). The termפָּלֶשְׂתִּינָהPāleśtīnā is sometimes used in secular historical contexts to refer to the land when it was under European (chieflyRoman and especiallyBritish) control. The termפָלַסְטִיןFālasṭīn is used after1948 in the context ofArab national aspirations in Palestine, and nowadays chiefly refers to theState of Palestine. Similarly toPāleśtīnā, it may be used in secular historiographical context to refer to the land during periods of Arab and/or Muslim rule, but this is rare.
^Northwestern parts, according to some definitions.
^Eberhard Schrader wrote in his seminal "Keilinschriften und Geschichtsforschung" ("KGF", in English "Cuneiform inscriptions and Historical Research") that the Assyrian tern "Palashtu" or "Pilistu" referred to the wider Palestine or "the East" in general, instead of "Philistia" (Schrader 1878, pp. 123–124;Anspacher 1912, p. 48).
^"The earliest occurrence of this name in a Greek text is in the mid-fifth century B.C., Histories of Herodotus, where it is applied to the area of the Levant between Phoenicia and Egypt." ..."The first known occurrence of the Greek word Palaistine is in the Histories of Herodotus, written near the mid-fifth century B.C. Palaistine Syria, or simply Palaistine, is applied to what may be identified as the southern part of Syria, comprising the region between Phoenicia and Egypt. Although some of Herodotus' references to Palestine are compatible with a narrow definition of the coastal strip of the Land of Israel, it is clear that Herodotus does call the whole land by the name of the coastal strip." ..."It is believed that Herodotus visited Palestine in the fifth decade of the fifth century B.C."..."In the earliest Classical literature references to Palestine generally applied to the Land of Israel in the wider sense." (Jacobson 1999)
^"As early as the Histories of Herodotus, written in the second half of the fifth century BCE, the term Palaistinê is used to describe not just the geographical area where the Philistines lived, but the entire area between Phoenicia and Egypt—in other words, the Land of Israel. Herodotus, who had traveled through the area, would have had firsthand knowledge of the land and its people. Yet he used Palaistinê to refer not to the Land of the Philistines, but to the Land of Israel" (Jacobson 2001)
^InThe Histories, Herodotus referred to the practice ofmale circumcision associated with the Hebrew people: "theColchians, theEgyptians, and theEthiopians, are the only nations who have practised circumcision from the earliest times. ThePhoenicians and the Syrians of Palestine themselves confess that they learnt the custom of the Egyptians... Now these are the only nations who use circumcision." (Herodotus 1858, pp. Bk ii, Ch 104)
^"Rabbinic sources insist that the Philistines of Judges and Samuel were different people altogether from the Philistines of Genesis. (Midrash Tehillim on Psalm 60 (Braude: vol. 1, 513); the issue here is precisely whether Israel should have been obliged, later, to keep the Genesis treaty.) This parallels a shift in the Septuagint's translation of Hebrew pelistim. Before Judges, it uses the neutral transliteration phulistiim, but beginning with Judges it switches to the pejorative allophuloi. [To be precise, Codex Alexandrinus starts using the new translation at the beginning of Judges and uses it invariably thereafter, Vaticanus likewise switches at the beginning of Judges, but reverts to phulistiim on six occasions later in Judges, the last of which is 14:2.]" (Jobling & Rose 1996, p. 404)
^TheNew Testament, taking up a term used once in theTanakh (1 Samuel 13:19),[45][46] speaks of a larger theologically-defined area, of which Palestine is a part, as the "land of Israel"[47] (γῆ Ἰσραήλ) (Matthew 2:20–21), in a narrative paralleling that of theBook of Exodus.
^"The parallels between this narrative and that of Exodus continue to be drawn. Like Pharaoh before him, Herod, having been frustrated in his original efforts, now seeks to achieve his objectives by implementing a program of infanticide. As a result, here – as in Exodus – rescuing the hero's life from the clutches of the evil king necessitates a sudden flight to another country. And finally, in perhaps the most vivid parallel of all, the present narrative uses virtually the same words of the earlier one to provide the information that the coast is clear for the herds safe return: here, in Matthew 2:20, 'go [back]… for those who sought the child's life are dead; there, in Exodus 4:19, go back… for all the men who sought your life are dead'" (Goldberg 2001, p. 147).
^Other writers, such asStrabo, referred to the region asCoele-Syria ("all Syria") around 10–20 CE .[48]
^"Several scholars hold the revisionist thesis that the Israelites did not move to the area as a distinct and foreign ethnic group at all, bringing with them their god Yahwe and forcibly evicting the indigenous population, but that they gradually evolved out of an amalgam of several ethnic groups, and that the Israelite cult developed on "Palestinian" soil amid the indigenous population. This would make the Israelites "Palestinians" not just in geographical and political terms (under the British Mandate, both Jews and Arabs living in the country were defined as Palestinians), but in ethnic and broader cultural terms as well. While this does not conform to the conventional view, or to the understanding of most Jews (and Arabs, for that matter), it is not easy to either prove or disprove. For although the Bible speaks at length about how the Israelites "took" the land, it is not a history book to draw reliable maps from. There is nothing in the extra-biblical sources, including the extensive Egyptian materials, to document the sojourn in Egypt or the exodus so vividly described in the Bible (and commonly dated to the thirteenth century). Biblical scholar Moshe Weinfeld sees the biblical account of the exodus, and of Moses and Joshua as founding heroes of the "national narration", as a later rendering of a lived experience that was subsequently either "forgotten" or consciously repressed – a textbook case of the "invented tradition" so familiar to modern students of ethnicity and nationalism." (Krämer 2011, p. 8)
^"In both the Idumaean and the Ituraean alliances, and in the annexation of Samaria, the Judaeans had taken the leading role. They retained it. The whole political–military–religious league that now united the hill country of Palestine from Dan to Beersheba, whatever it called itself, was directed by, and soon came to be called by others, 'the Ioudaioi'" (Smith 1999, p. 210a)
^For example, in a 2011 review of the state of modern scholarship,Bart Ehrman (a secular agnostic) described the dispute, whilst concluding: "He certainly existed, as virtually every competent scholar of antiquity, Christian or non-Christian, agrees" (Ehrman 2011, p. 285)
^"The religious situation also evolved under the new masters. Christianity did remain the majority religion, but it lost the privileges it had enjoyed." (Flusin 2011, pp. 199–226, 215)
^The earlier view, exemplifed by the writings of Moshe Gil, argued for a Jewish-Samaritan majority at the time of conquest: "We may reasonably state that at the time if the Muslim conquest, a large Jewish population still lived in Palestine. We do not know whether they formed the majority but we may assume with some certainly that they did so when grouped together with the Samaritans." (Gil 1997, p. 3)
^"Under the Tulunids, Syro-Egyptian territory was deeply imbued with the concept of an extraordinary role devolving upon Jerusalem in Islam as al-Quds, Bayt al-Maqdis or Bayt al-Muqaddas, the "House of Holiness", the seat of the Last Judgment, the Gate to Paradise for Muslims as well as for Jews and Christians. In the popular conscience, this concept established a bond between the three monotheistic religions. If Ahmad ibn Tulun was interred on the slope of theMuqattam [near Cairo],Isa ibn Musa al-Nashari andTakin were laid to rest in Jerusalem in 910 and 933, as were theirIkhshidid successors andKafir [for context seehere]. To honor the great general and governor of SyriaAnushtakin al-Dizbiri, who died in 433/1042, theFatimid Dynasty had his remains solemnly conveyed from Aleppo to Jerusalem in 448/1056-57." (Bianquis 1998, p. 103)
^"In 1914 about 12,000 Jewish farmers and fieldworkers lived in approximately forty Jewish settlements – and to repeat it once again, they were by no means all Zionists. The dominant languages were still Yiddish, Russian, Polish, Rumanian, Hungarian, or German in the case of Ashkenazi immigrants from Europe, and Ladino (or 'Judeo-Spanish') and Arabic in the case of Sephardic and Oriental Jews. Biblical Hebrew served as the sacred language, while modern Hebrew (Ivrit) remained for the time being the language of a politically committed minority that had devoted itself to a revival of 'Hebrew culture'." (Krämer 2011, p. 120)
^"Transjordan, however, controlled large portions of Judea and Samaria, later known as the West Bank" (Tucker & Roberts 2008, pp. 248–249, 500, 522)
^The majority of the international community (including the UN General Assembly, the United Nations Security Council, the European Union, the International Criminal Court, and the vast majority of human rights organizations) considers Israel to be continuing to occupying Gaza, the West Bank and East Jerusalem. The government of Israel and some supporters have, at times, disputed this position of the international community. In 2011, Andrew Sanger explained the situation as follows: "Israel claims it no longer occupies the Gaza Strip, maintaining that it is neither a Stale nor a territory occupied or controlled by Israel, but rather it has 'sui generis' status. Pursuant to the Disengagement Plan, Israel dismantled all military institutions and settlements in Gaza and there is no longer a permanent Israeli military or civilian presence in the territory. However the Plan also provided that Israel will guard and monitor the external land perimeter of the Gaza Strip, will continue to maintain exclusive authority in Gaza air space, and will continue to exercise security activity in the sea off the coast of the Gaza Strip as well as maintaining an Israeli military presence on the Egyptian-Gaza border. and reserving the right to reenter Gaza at will. Israel continues to control six of Gaza's seven land crossings, its maritime borders and airspace and the movement of goods and persons in and out of the territory. Egypt controls one of Gaza's land crossings. Troops from the Israeli Defence Force regularly enter pans of the territory and/or deploy missile attacks, drones and sonic bombs into Gaza. Israel has declared a no-go buffer zone that stretches deep into Gaza: if Gazans enter this zone they are shot on sight. Gaza is also dependent on Israel for inter alia electricity, currency, telephone networks, issuing IDs, and permits to enter and leave the territory. Israel also has sole control of the Palestinian Population Registry through which the Israeli Army regulates who is classified as a Palestinian and who is a Gazan or West Banker. Since 2000 aside from a limited number of exceptions Israel has refused to add people to the Palestinian Population Registry. It is this direct external control over Gaza and indirect control over life within Gaza that has led the United Nations, the UN General Assembly, the UN Fact Finding Mission to Gaza, International human rights organisations, US Government websites, the UK Foreign and Commonwealth Office and a significant number of legal commentators, to reject the argument that Gaza is no longer occupied.",[133] and in 2012 Iain Scobbie explained: "Even after the accession to power of Hamas, Israel's claim that it no longer occupies Gaza has not been accepted by UN bodies, most States, nor the majority of academic commentators because of its exclusive control of its border with Gaza and crossing points including the effective control it exerted over the Rafah crossing until at least May 2011, its control of Gaza's maritime zones and airspace which constitute what Aronson terms the 'security envelope' around Gaza, as well as its ability to intervene forcibly at will in Gaza"[134] and Michelle Gawerc wrote in the same year: "While Israel withdrew from the immediate territory, Israel still controlled all access to and from Gaza through the border crossings, as well as through the coastline and the airspace. ln addition, Gaza was dependent upon Israel for water electricity sewage communication networks and for its trade (Gisha 2007. Dowty 2008). In other words, while Israel maintained that its occupation of Gaza ended with its unilateral disengagement Palestinians – as well as many human right organizations and international bodies – argued that Gaza was by all intents and purposes still occupied."[135] For more details of this terminology dispute, including with respect to the current status of the Gaza Strip, seeInternational views on the Israeli-occupied territories andStatus of territories captured by Israel.
^For an explanation of the differences between an annexed but disputed territory (e.g.Tibet) and a militarily occupied territory, please see the articleMilitary occupation. The "longest military occupation" description has been described in a number of ways, including: "The Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza is the longest military occupation in modern times,"[136] "...longest official military occupation of modern history—currently entering its thirty-fifth year,"[137] "...longest-lasting military occupation of the modern age, "[138] "This is probably the longest occupation in modern international relations, and it holds a central place in all literature on the law of belligerent occupation since the early 1970s,"[139] "These are settlements and a military occupation that is the longest in the twentieth and twenty-first century, the longest formerly being the Japanese occupation of Korea from 1910 to 1945. So this is thirty-three years old [in 2000], pushing the record,"[140] "Israel is the only modern state that has held territories under military occupation for over four decades."[141] In 2014 Sharon Weill provided further context, writing: "Although the basic philosophy behind the law of military occupation is that it is a temporary situation modem occupations have well demonstrated thatrien ne dure comme le provisoire A significant number of post-1945 occupations have lasted more than two decades such as the occupations of Namibia by South Africa and of East Timor by Indonesia as well as the ongoing occupations of Northern Cyprus by Turkey and of Western Sahara by Morocco. The Israeli occupation of the Palestinian territories,which is the longest in all occupation's history has already entered its fifth decade."[142]
^According to the Jewish Encyclopedia published between 1901 and 1906:[146] "Palestine extends, from 31° to 33° 20' N. latitude. Its southwest point (at Raphia, Tell Rifaḥ, southwest of Gaza) is about 34° 15' E. longitude, and its northwest point (mouth of the Liṭani) is at 35° 15' E. longitude, while the course of the Jordan reaches 35° 35' to the east. The west-Jordan country has, consequently, a length of about 150 English miles from north to south, and a breadth of about 23 miles (37 km) at the north and 80 miles (129 km) at the south. The area of this region, as measured by the surveyors of the English Palestine Exploration Fund, is about 6,040 square miles (15,644 km2). The east-Jordan district is now being surveyed by the German Palästina-Verein, and although the work is not yet completed, its area may be estimated at 4,000 square miles (10,360 km2). This entire region, as stated above, was not occupied exclusively by the Israelites, for the plain along the coast in the south belonged to the Philistines, and that in the north to the Phoenicians, while in the east-Jordan country, the Israelitic possessions never extended farther than the Arnon (Wadi al-Mujib) in the south, nor did the Israelites ever settle in the most northerly and easterly portions of the plain of Bashan. To-day the number of inhabitants does not exceed 650,000. Palestine, and especially the Israelitic state, covered, therefore, a very small area, approximating that of the state of Vermont." From the Jewish Encyclopedia
^According to theEncyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition (1911), Palestine is:[147] "[A] geographical name of rather loose application. Etymological strictness would require it to denote exclusively the narrow strip of coast-land once occupied by the Philistines, from whose name it is derived. It is, however, conventionally used as a name for the territory which, in the Old Testament, is claimed as the inheritance of the pre-exilic Hebrews; thus it may be said generally to denote the southern third of the province of Syria. Except in the west, where the country is bordered by the Mediterranean Sea, the limit of this territory cannot be laid down on the map as a definite line. The modern subdivisions under the jurisdiction of the Ottoman Empire are in no sense conterminous with those of antiquity, and hence do not afford a boundary by which Palestine can be separated exactly from the rest of Syria in the north, or from the Sinaitic and Arabian deserts in the south and east; nor are the records of ancient boundaries sufficiently full and definite to make possible the complete demarcation of the country. Even the convention above referred to is inexact: it includes the Philistine territory, claimed but never settled by the Hebrews, and excludes the outlying parts of the large area claimed in Num. xxxiv. as the Hebrew possession (from the " River of Egypt " to Hamath). However, the Hebrews themselves have preserved, in the proverbial expression " from Dan to Beersheba " (Judg. xx.i, &c.), an indication of the normal north-and-south limits of their land; and in defining the area of the country under discussion it is this indication which is generally followed. Taking as a guide the natural features most nearly corresponding to these outlying points, we may describe Palestine as the strip of land extending along the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea from the mouth of the Litany or Kasimiya River (33° 20' N.) southward to the mouth of the Wadi Ghuzza; the latter joins the sea in 31° 28' N., a short distance south of Gaza, and runs thence in a south-easterly direction so as to include on its northern side the site of Beersheba. Eastward there is no such definite border. The River Jordan, it is true, marks a line ofdelimitation between Western andEastern Palestine; but it is practically impossible to say where the latter ends and the Arabian desert begins. Perhaps the line of the pilgrim road from Damascus to Mecca is the most convenient possible boundary. The total length of the region is about 140 m (459.32 ft); its breadth west of the Jordan ranges from about 23 m (75.46 ft) in the north to about 80 m (262.47 ft) in the south."
^"The term Palestine in the textbooks refers to Palestinian National Authority." (Adwan 2006, p. 242)
^See for example, Palestinian school textbooks[xxvii]
^"...the population of Palestine in antiquity did not exceed a million persons. It can also be shown, moreover, that this was more or less the size of the population in the peak period—the lateByzantine period, around AD 600" (Broshi 1979, p. 7)
^"...the population of the country in the Roman-Byzantine period greatly exceeded that in the Iron Age... If we accept Broshi's population estimates, which appear to be confirmed by the results of recent research, it follows that the estimates for the population during the Iron Age must be set at a lower figure." (Shiloh 1980, p. 33)
^By A.D. 300, Jews made up a mere quarter of the total population of the province of Syria Palaestina (Krämer 2011, p. 15)
^abcZissu, Boaz (2018). "Interbellum Judea 70-132 CE: An Archaeological Perspective". In Joshua Schwartz; Peter J. Tomson (eds.).Jews and Christians in the First and Second Centuries: The Interbellum 70‒132 CE. Leiden, NL: BRILL. pp. 19,28–29,37.ISBN978-90-04-34986-5.OCLC988856967.
^abJones, A.H.M. (1971).The Cities of the Eastern Roman Provinces (2nd ed.). Oxford. p. 277.This provoked the last Jewish war, which seems from our meager accounts [...] to have resulted in the desolation of Judaea and the practical extermination of its Jewish population.
^abBartrop, Paul R.; Totten, Samuel (2004). "The History of Genocide". InSamuel Totten (ed.).Teaching about Genocide: Issues, Approaches, and Resources. Armenian Research Center collection.Greenwich, CT:Information Age Publishing /Leeds:Emerald Publishing Limited. p. 24.ISBN1-59311-075-8.In the aftermath of the Roman victories over the Jews of Palestine (Judaea) during the first century CE, at which time the Temple was destroyed (70 CE) and the last remnants of Jewish opposition to Roman rule under Simeon Bar Kochba were snuffed out at Betar (135 CE), the Jews were a devastated people. Over half a million had been killed in the aftermath of the wars, their cities had been laid waste, and the survivors were dispersed through slave markets across the known world. In what was a clear case of genocide, the Jewish state was extinguished, and would not appear again for over 1,800 years.
^ab"The Forgotten History of the Term "Palestine" | Hudson Institute".www.hudson.org. 17 June 2025. Retrieved9 July 2025.In 135 CE, after stamping out the province of Judea's second insurrection, the Romans renamed the province Syria Palaestina—that is, "Palestinian Syria." They did so resentfully, as a punishment, to obliterate the link between the Jews (in Hebrew, Y'hudim and in Latin Judaei) and the province (the Hebrew name of which was Y'hudah). "Palaestina" referred to the Philistines, whose home base had been on the Mediterranean coast.
^abLehmann, Clayton Miles (Summer 1998)."Palestine: History: 135–337: Syria Palaestina and the Tetrarchy".The On-line Encyclopedia of the Roman Provinces. University of South Dakota. Archived fromthe original on 11 August 2009. Retrieved24 August 2014.In the aftermath of the Bar Cochba Revolt, the Romans excluded Jews from a large area aroundAelia Capitolina, whichGentiles only inhabited. The province now hosted two legions and many auxiliary units, two colonies, and—to complete the disassociation with Judaea—a new name, Syria Palaestina.
^abMagness, Jodi (2013).The Archaeology of the Holy Land: From the Destruction of Solomon's Temple to the Muslim Conquest (Reprinted with corrections ed.). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. p. 260.ISBN978-0-521-12413-3.To further punish the Jews, Hadrian instituted bans restricting or prohibiting some Jewish practices, such as circumcision and sabbath observance. For the first time, Jews living under Roman rule were subject to persecution under the law for practicing their religion. Finally, to obliterate the memory of this troublesome people, Hadrian changed the name of the province from Judea to Syria-Palaestina, reviving the name of the ancient kingdom of Philistia.
^abRobinson, 1865, p.15: "Palestine, or Palestina, now the most common name for the Holy Land, occurs three times in the English version of the Old Testament; and is there put for theHebrew name פלשת, elsewhere rendered Philistia. As thus used, it refers strictly and only to the country of thePhilistines, in the southwest corner of the land. So, too, in the Greek form, Παλαςτίνη, it is used byJosephus. But both Josephus andPhilo apply the name to the whole land of the Hebrews; and Greek and Roman writers employed it in the like extent."
^Louis H. Feldman, whose view differs from that of Robinson, thinks that Josephus, when referring toPalestine, had in mind only the coastal region, writing: "Writers on geography in the first century [CE] clearly differentiate Judaea from Palestine. ...Jewish writers, notablyPhilo andJosephus, with few exceptions refer to the land asJudaea, reserving the namePalestine for the coastal area occupied [formerly] by the Philistines." (END QUOTE). See: p. 1 in: (Feldman 1990, pp. 1–23).
^Eshel, Hanan (2006), Katz, Steven T. (ed.),"The Bar Kochba Revolt, 132–135",The Cambridge History of Judaism: Volume 4: The Late Roman-Rabbinic Period, The Cambridge History of Judaism, vol. 4, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, p. 127,doi:10.1017/chol9780521772488.006,ISBN978-0-521-77248-8, retrieved31 May 2025,An additional, more lasting punitive measure taken by the Romans involved expunging Judaea from the provincial name, changing it from Provincia Judaea to Provincia Syria Palestina. Although such name changes occurred elsewhere, never before or after was a nation's name expunged as the result of rebellion.
^Eck 1999, pp. 88–89: "At the end of the war, a drastic decision was made, probably by Hadrian himself, to change the name of the province from Judaea to Syria Palaestina. Our familiarity with the new name may have jaded us to the significance of the change. True, the Romans changed names of provinces quite often ... But never before (or after) was the old name of a province changed as a corollary of a revolt. Not that revolts were not frequent in other provinces as well: the Germani in Germania, the Pannonii in Pannonia, and the Brittones in Britannia all revolted against Rome at one time or another. Yet none of these provinces lost its original name derived from the name of its people. But Judaea, derived from Iudaei, ceased to exist for the Roman government after the Bar Kokhba revolt. It was not because the Jewish population was much reduced as a result of losses suffered during the war that the name of the province was changed; the same was true, for example, of Pannonia, and yet the old name was kept. The change of name was part of the punishment inflicted on the Jews; they were punished with the loss of a name. This is the clear message of this exceptional measure, the one and only example of such a measure in the history of the Empire."
^Jacobson 1999, p. [page needed]: "In the earliest Classical literature references to Palestine generally applied to the Land of Israel in the wider sense. A reappraisal of this question has given rise to the proposition that the name Palestine, in its Greek form Palaistine, was both a transliteration of a word used to describe the land of the Philistines and, at the same time, a literal translation of the name Israel. This dual interpretation reconciles apparent contradictions in early definitions of the name Palaistine and is compatible with the Greeks' penchant for punning, especially on place names."
^Beloe, W. (1821).Herodotus, Vol.II. London. p. 269.It should be remembered that Syria is always regarded by Herodotus as synonymous withAssyria. What the Greeks called Palestine the Arabs call Falastin, which is the Philistines of Scripture. (tr. from Greek, with notes)
^"Palestine and Israel", David M. Jacobson,Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research, No. 313 (February 1999), pp. 65–74; "The Southern and Eastern Borders of Abar-Nahara," Steven S. Tuell,Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research, No. 284 (November 1991), pp. 51–57; "Herodotus' Description of the East Mediterranean Coast", Anson F. Rainey,Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research, No. 321 (February 2001), pp. 57–63;Herodotus,Histories
^Drews 1998, p. 49: "Our names 'Philistia' and 'Philistines' are unfortunate obfuscations, first introduced by the translators of the LXX and made definitive by Jerome's Vg. When turning a Hebrew text into Greek, the translators of the LXX might simply—as Josephus was later to do—have Hellenized the Hebrew פְּלִשְׁתִּים asΠαλαιστίνοι, and the toponym פְּלִשְׁתִּ as Παλαιστίνη. Instead, they avoided the toponym altogether, turning it into an ethnonym. As for the ethnonym, they chose sometimes to transliterate it (incorrectly aspirating the initial letter, perhaps to compensate for their inability to aspirate the sigma) asφυλιστιιμ, a word that looked exotic rather than familiar, and more often to translate it as άάλλόφυλοι. Jerome followed the LXX's lead in eradicating the names, 'Palestine' and 'Palestinians', from his Old Testament, a practice adopted in most modern translations of the Bible."
^Drews 1998, p. 51: "The LXX's regular translation of פְּלִשְׁתִּים intoάλλόφυλοι is significant here. Not a proper name at all, allophyloi is a generic term, meaning something like 'people of other stock'. If we assume, as I think we must, that with their word allophyloi the translators of the LXX tried to convey in Greek what p'lištîm had conveyed in Hebrew, we must conclude that for the worshippers of Yahweh p'lištîm and b'nê yiśrā'ēl were mutually exclusive terms, p'lištîm (or allophyloi) being tantamount to 'non-Judaeans of the Promised Land' when used in a context of the third century BCE, and to 'non-Israelites of the Promised Land' when used in a context of Samson, Saul and David. Unlike an ethnonym, the noun פְּלִשְׁתִּים normally appeared without a definite article."
^abTamari 2011, pp. 29–30: "Filastin Risalesi, is the salnameh type military handbook issued for Palestine at the beginning of the Great War... The first is a general map of the country in which the boundaries extend far beyond the frontiers of the Mutasarflik of Jerusalem, which was, until then, the standard delineation of Palestine. The northern borders of this map include the city of Tyre (Sur) and the Litani River, thus encompassing all of the Galilee and parts of southern Lebanon, as well as districts of Nablus, Haifa and Akka—all of which were part of the Wilayat of Beirut until the end of the war."
^Wenning 2007, pp. 26: All that can be said with certainty is that the Nabataeans are known in the sources since the fourth century B.C. Up to that time the Qedarites, the dominant Arab tribe of the Persian period, controlled the south from the Hejaz and all of the Negev.
^David F. Graf, 'Petra and the Nabataeans in the Early Hellenistic Period: the literary and archaeological evidence,' in Michel Mouton, Stephan G. Schmid (eds.),Men on the Rocks: The Formation of Nabataean Petra, Logos Verlag Berlin GmbH, 2013 pp.35–55 pp.47–48: 'the Idumean texts indicate that a large portion of the community in southern Palestine were Arabs, many of whom have names similar to those in the "Nabataean" onomasticon of later periods.' (p.47).
^"Founded in the years 22-10 or 9 B.C. by Herod the Great, close to the ruins of a small Phoenician naval station named Strato's Tower (Stratonos Pyrgos, Turns Stratonis), which flourished during the 3d to 1st c. B.C. This small harbor was situated on the N part of the site. Herod dedicated the new town and its port (limen Sebastos) toCaesar Augustus. During the Early Roman period Caesarea was the seat of the Roman procurators of the province of Judea. Vespasian, proclaimed emperor at Caesarea, raised it to the rank of Colonia Prima Flavia Augusta, and later Alexander Severus raised it to the rank of Metropolis Provinciae Syriae Palestinae." A. Negev, "CAESAREA MARITIMA Palestine, Israel" in: Richard Stillwell et al. (eds.),The Princeton Encyclopedia of Classical Sites (1976).
^Eshel 2008, pp. 125: Although Dio's figure of 985 as the number of villages destroyed during the war seems hyperbolic, all Judaean villages, without exception, excavated thus far were razed following the Bar Kochba Revolt. This evidence supports the impression of total regional destruction following the war..
^Schäfer 2003, p. 163: The entire spiritual and economic life of the Palestinian Jews moved to Galilee.Meyers & Chancey 2012, p. 173: Galilee became the all-important focus of Jewish life
^abMagness 2012, p. 260: "To further punish the Jews, Hadrian instituted bans restricting or prohibiting some Jewish practices, such as circumcision and sabbath observance. For the first time, Jews living under Roman rule were subject to persecution under the law for practicing their religion. Finally, to obliterate the memory of this troublesome people, Hadrian changed the name of the province from Judea to Syria-Palaestina, reviving the name of the ancient kingdom of Philistia."
^abSchwartz 2016, pp. 44–45:"The Romans thus quelled the Bar Kokhba revolt with unparalleled severity. ... To celebrate the de-judaization of the province, so it seems, its name was changed from Judaea to Syria Palaestina."
^Eshel, Hanan (2006), Katz, Steven T. (ed.),"The Bar Kochba Revolt, 132–135",The Cambridge History of Judaism: Volume 4: The Late Roman-Rabbinic Period, The Cambridge History of Judaism, vol. 4, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, p. 127,doi:10.1017/chol9780521772488.006,ISBN978-0-521-77248-8, retrieved31 May 2025,An additional, more lasting punitive measure taken by the Romans involved expunging Judaea from the provincial name, changing it from Provincia Judaea to Provincia Syria Palestina. Although such name changes occurred elsewhere, never before or after was a nation's name expunged as the result of rebellion.
^Eck 1999, pp. 88–89:"At the end of the war, a drastic decision was made, probably by Hadrian himself, to change the name of the province from Judaea to Syria Palaestina. ... The change of name was part of the punishment inflicted on the Jews; they were punished with the loss of a name. This is the clear message of this exceptional measure, the one and only example of such a measure in the history of the Empire."
^Jacobson 2001, pp. 44–45: "Hadrian officially renamed Judea Syria Palaestina after his Roman armies suppressed the Bar-Kokhba Revolt (the Second Jewish Revolt) in 135 C.E.; this is commonly viewed as a move intended to sever the connection of the Jews to their historical homeland. However, that Jewish writers such as Philo, in particular, and Josephus, who flourished while Judea was still formally in existence, used the name Palestine for the Land of Israel in their Greek works, suggests that this interpretation of history is mistaken. Hadrian's choice of Syria Palaestina may be more correctly seen as a rationalization of the name of the new province, in accordance with its area being far larger than geographical Judea. Indeed, Syria Palaestina had an ancient pedigree that was intimately linked with the area of greater Israel."
^O'Mahony, 2003, p. 14: 'Before the Muslim conquest, the population of Palestine was overwhelmingly Christian, albeit with a sizeable Jewish community.'
^Marom, Roy; Taxel, Itamar (2024). "Ḥamāma: The Palestinian Countryside in Bloom (1750–1948)".Journal of Islamic Archaeology.11 (1):83–110.doi:10.1558/jia.26586.
^Marom, Roy; Fantalkin, Alexander (2025). "Vines Among the Dunes: Sand/Dune Agriculture in Rimāl Isdūd/Ashdod-Yam during the Late Ottoman and British Mandate Periods".Contemporary Levant.10 (1):19–42.doi:10.1080/20581831.2025.2475263.
^Plitmann, Uzi (2015)."Preface". In Zohary, M. & Feinbrun-Dotan, N. (eds.).Flora Palaestina (2nd ed.). Jerusalem: The Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities. Retrieved4 March 2025.
Aharoni, Yohanan (1 January 1979).The Land of the Bible: A Historical Geography. Westminster John Knox Press. p. 64.ISBN978-0-664-24266-4.The desert served as an eastern boundary in times when Transjordan was occupied. But when Transjordan became an unsettled region, a pasturage for desert nomads, then the Jordan Valley and the Dead Sea formed the natural eastern boundary of Western Palestine.
Bachi, Roberto (1974).The Population of Israel. Jerusalem: Institute of Contemporary Jewry, Hebrew University.
Belfer-Cohen, Anna; Bar-Yosef, Ofer (2000). "Early Sedentism in the Near East: A Bumpy Ride to Village Life". In Kuijt, Ian (ed.).Life in Neolithic Farming Communities: social organization, identity, and differentiation. New York: Kluwer Academic/Plenum Publishers.ISBN978-0-306-46122-4.
Chancey, Mark A (2005).Greco-Roman Culture and the Galilee of Jesus. Cambridge University Press.ISBN978-0-521-84647-9.
Chase, Kenneth (2003).Firearms: a Global History to 1700. Cambridge University Press.ISBN978-0-521-82274-9.
Crotty, Robert Brian (2017).The Christian Survivor: How Roman Christianity Defeated Its Early Competitors. Springer. p. 25 f.n. 4.ISBN978-981-10-3214-1.The Babylonians translated the Hebrew name [Judah] into Aramaic as Yehud Medinata ('the province of Judah') or simply 'Yehud' and made it a new Babylonian province. This was inherited by the Persians. Under the Greeks, Yehud was translated as Judaea and this was taken over by the Romans. After the Jewish rebellion of 135 CE, the Romans renamed the area Syria Palaestina or simply Palestine. The area described by these land titles differed to some extent in the different periods.
Crouch, C. L. (1 October 2014).Israel and the Assyrians: Deuteronomy, the Succession Treaty of Esarhaddon, and the Nature of Subversion. SBL Press.ISBN978-1-62837-026-3.Judah's reason(s) for submitting to Assyrian hegemony, at least superficially, require explanation, while at the same time indications of its read-but-disguised resistance to Assyria must be uncovered... The political and military sprawl of the Assyrian empire during the late Iron Age in the southern Levant, especially toward its outer borders, is not quite akin to the single dominating hegemony envisioned by most discussions of hegemony and subversion. In the case of Judah it should be reiterated that Judah was always a vassal state, semi-autonomous and on the periphery of the imperial system, it was never a fully-integrated provincial territory. The implications of this distinction for Judah's relationship with and experience of the Assyrian empire should not be underestimated; studies of the expression of Assyria's cultural and political powers in its provincial territories and vassal states have revealed notable differences in the degree of active involvement in different types of territories. Indeed, the mechanics of the Assyrian empire were hardly designed for direct control over all its vassals' internal activities, provided that a vassal produced the requisite tribute and did not provoke trouble among its neighbors, the level of direct involvement from Assyria remained relatively low. For the entirety of its experience of the Assyrian empire, Judah functioned as a vassal state, rather than a province under direct Assyrian rule, thereby preserving at least a certain degree of autonomy, especially in its internal affairs. Meanwhile, the general atmosphere of Pax Assyriaca in the southern Levant minimized the necessity of (and opportunities for) external conflict. That Assyrians, at least in small numbers, were present in Judah is likely – probably a qipu and his entourage who, if the recent excavators of Ramat Rahel are correct, perhaps resided just outside the capital – but there is far less evidence than is commonly assumed to suggest that these left a direct impression of Assyria on this small vassal state... The point here is that, despite the wider context of Assyria's political and economic power in the ancient Near East in general and the southern Levant in particular, Judah remained a distinguishable and semi-independent southern Levantine state,part of but not subsumed by the Assyrian empire and, indeed, benefitting from it in significant ways.
Doumani, Beshara (1995).Rediscovering Palestine: merchants and peasants in Jabal Nablus 1700–1900. Berkeley: University of California Press.ISBN978-0-520-20370-9.
Eshel, Hanan (2008).Dead Sea Scrolls and the Hasmonean State. Studies in the Dead Sea Scrolls and Related Literature (SDSS). Grand Rapids, Michigan/Cambridge and Jerusalem, Israel: William B. Eerdmans and Yad Ben-Zvi Press.ISBN978-0-8028-6285-3.
Eshel, Hanan (2006). "The Bar Kochba Revolt, 132–135". In Katz, Steven T. (ed.).The Late Roman-Rabbinic Period. The Cambridge History of Judaism. Vol. 4. Cambridge University Press. pp. 105–127.ISBN978-0-521-77248-8.
Evenari, Michael (1982).The Negev: The Challenge of a Desert. Harvard University Press. p. 26.ISBN978-0-674-60672-2.As the cradle of Christianity, Palestine became the center of religious worship for a vast empire
Finkelstein, I; Mazar, A.; Schmidt, B. (2007).The Quest for the Historical Israel. Atlanta, GA: Society of Biblical Literature.ISBN978-1-58983-277-0.
Finkelstein, Israel; Silberman, Neil Asher (2002).The Bible Unearthed: Archaeology's New Vision of Ancient Israel and the Origin of Its Sacred Texts. Simon & Schuster.ISBN978-0-684-86912-4.
Gerber, Haim (1998). "Palestine and Other Territorial Concepts in the 17th Century".International Journal of Middle East Studies.30 (4):563–572.doi:10.1017/S0020743800052569.S2CID162982234.
Hansen, Mogens Herman, ed. (2000).A Comparative Study of Thirty City-state Cultures: an investigation. Copenhagen: Kgl. Danske Videnskabernes Selskab.ISBN978-87-7876-177-4.
Harris, David Russell (1996).The Origins and Spread of Agriculture and Pastoralism in Eurasia. London: Routledge.ISBN978-1-85728-537-6.
Hayes, John H.; Mandell, Sara R (1998).The Jewish People in Classical Antiquity: from Alexander to Bar Kochba. Louisville KY: Westminster John Knox Press.ISBN978-0-664-25727-9.
Karpat, Kemal H (2002).Studies on Ottoman Social and Political History. Leiden: Brill.ISBN978-90-04-12101-0.
Kårtveit, Bård (2014).Dilemmas of Attachment: Identity and Belonging among Palestinian Christians. BRILL. p. 209.ISBN978-90-04-27639-0.is widely regarded as the cradle of Christianity
Killebrew, Ann E. (2005).Biblical Peoples and Ethnicity: An Archaeological Study of Egyptians, Canaanites, Philistines and Early Israel 1300–1100 BC. Society of Biblical Literature.ISBN978-1-58983-097-4.
Kimmerling, Baruch; Migdal, Joel S (1994).Palestinians: The Making of a People. Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press.ISBN978-0-674-65223-1.
Köchler, Hans (1981).The Legal Aspects of the Palestine Problem with Special Regard to the Question of Jerusalem. Vienna: Braumüller.ISBN978-3-7003-0278-0.
Kurz, Anat N (2005).Fatah and the Politics of Violence: the institutionalization of a popular Struggle. Brighton: Sussex Academic Press.ISBN978-1-84519-032-3.
Lewis, Bernard (1954). "Studies in the Ottoman Archives—I".Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies.16 (3):469–501.doi:10.1017/s0041977x00086808.S2CID162304704.
Metzer, Jacob (1998).The Divided Economy of Mandatory Palestine. Cambridge Middle East Studies, Series Number 11. Cambridge University Press.ISBN978-0-521-46550-2.
Mills, Watson E (1990).Mercer Dictionary of the Bible. Mercer University Press.ISBN978-0-86554-373-7.
Miskin, Maayana (5 December 2012)."PA Weighs 'State of Palestine' Passport".Arutz Sheva.Archived from the original on 7 December 2012. Retrieved8 June 2014.A senior PA official revealed the plans in an interview withAl-Quds newspaper. The change to 'state' status is important because it shows that 'the state of Palestine is occupied,' he said.
Neusner, J. (1983). "Jews in Iran". In Yarshater, Ehsan (ed.).The Cambridge History of Iran, Volume 3 (2); the Seleucid, Parthian and Sasanian periods. Cambridge University Press.ISBN978-0-521-24693-4.
Noth, Martin (1939). "Zur Geschichte des Namens Palästina".Zeitschrift des Deutschen Palästina-Vereins.62 (1/2). Deutscher Verein zur Erforschung Palästinas:125–144.JSTOR27930226.
O'Mahony, Anthony (2003). "The Christian Communities, religion, politics and church-state relations in Jerusalem: an historical survey".The Christian communities of Jerusalem and the Holy Land: Studies in History, Religion and Politics. University of Wales Press.ISBN978-0-7083-1772-3.
Porath, Yehoshua (1974).The Emergence of the Palestinian-Arab National Movement, 1918–1929. London: Frank Cass.ISBN978-0-7146-2939-1.
Redmount, Carol A (1999). "Bitter Lives: Israel in and out of Egypt". In Coogan, Michael D. (ed.).The Oxford History of the Biblical World. Oxford University Press.ISBN978-0-19-508707-9.
Robinson, Edward (1865).Physical geography of the Holy Land. Boston: Crocker & Brewster.
Rogan, Eugene L (2002).Frontiers of the State in the Late Ottoman Empire: Transjordan, 1850–1921. Cambridge University Press.ISBN978-0-521-89223-0.
Schlor, Joachim (1999).Tel Aviv: From Dream to City. Reaktion Books.ISBN978-1-86189-033-7.
Schmelz, Uziel O. (1990). "Population Characteristics of Jerusalem and Hebron Regions According to Ottoman Census of 1905". In Gilbar, Gar G (ed.).Ottoman Palestine: 1800–1914. Leiden: Brill.ISBN978-90-04-07785-0.
Schwartz, Seth (2016). "The Impact of the Jewish Rebellions, 66–135 CE: Destruction or Provincialization?". In Collins, John J.; Manning, J.G. (eds.).Revolt and Resistance in the Ancient Classical World and the Near East. Culture and History of the Ancient Near East. Vol. 85. Brill. pp. 234–252.doi:10.1163/9789004330184_016.ISBN978-90-04-33018-4.
Shiloh, Yigal (1980). "The Population of Iron Age Palestine in the Light of a Sample Analysis of Urban Plans, Areas, and Population Density".Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research.239 (239):25–35.doi:10.2307/1356754.JSTOR1356754.S2CID163824693.
Sicker, Martin (1999).Reshaping Palestine: from Muhammad Ali to the British Mandate, 1831–1922. New York: Praeger/Greenwood.ISBN978-0-275-96639-3.
Silverburg, Sanford R. (2009). "Diplomatic Recognition of Statesin statu nascendi: The Case of Palestine". In Silverburg, Sanford R. (ed.).Palestine and International Law: Essays on Politics and Economics. Diplomatic Recognition of States.ISBN978-0-7864-4248-5.
Sivan, Hagith (2008).Palestine in Late Antiquity. Oxford University Press. p. 2.ISBN978-0-19-160867-4.
Taylor, Joan E. (15 November 2012).The Essenes, the Scrolls, and the Dead Sea. Oxford University Press.ISBN978-0-19-955448-5.Up until this date the Bar Kokhba documents indicate that towns, villages and ports where Jews lived were busy with industry and activity. Afterwards there is an eerie silence, and the archaeological record testifies to little Jewish presence until the Byzantine era, in En Gedi. This picture coheres with what we have already determined in Part I of this study, that the crucial date for what can only be described as genocide, and the devastation of Jews and Judaism within central Judea, was 135 CE and not, as usually assumed, 70 CE, despite the siege of Jerusalem and the Temple's destruction
Walmsley, Alan (2000). "Production, exchange and regional trade in the Islamic Wast Mediterranean: old structures, new systems?". In Hansen, Inge Lyse; Wickham, Chris (eds.).The Long Eighth Century: Production, Distribution and Demand. BRILL.ISBN978-90-04-11723-5.
Wenning, Robert (2007). "The Nabataeans in History (Before AD 106)". In Politis, Konstantinos D (ed.).The World of the Nabataeans: Volume 2 of the International Conference the World of the Herods and the Nabataeans Held at the British Museum, 17–19 April, 2001. Oriens Et Occidens. Wiesbaden: Franz Steiner Verlag.ISBN978-3-515-08816-9.
.svg)
_1803.jpg)
.jpg)
.jpg)
.jpg)
.svg)
